Too much hihat bleed in snare mic

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:08 pm

What are some techniques for reducing splashy hihat bleed in the snare mic during tracking? When I compress the snare during mixing, there is way too much hihat bleed. I'ved used soundreplacer in the past, but I find that it eliminates the subtle nuances of the drummers performance. Please advise.
Thanks,
Benny

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:16 pm

Push the mic thru a Styrofoam cup until you’re about midway thru. Tape it. You can take it a step further and place foam around the cup. Just make sure it doesn’t hinder the drummer.

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 11:21 pm

After tracking, take the snare drum track, patch it into a gate with a side chain. Take an equalizer, patch that into the side chain of the gate. Turn down the high frequencies. Turn down the low frequencies. This will make the gate insensitive to those extraneous frequencies. Now gate the snare drum properly by adjusting your threshold so that the gate only opens when the snare drum is hit. And voilà! You can now equalize the snare drum to taste and mix it in with everything else.

And yes, you can do the above within software also.

Who let the dog out?
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:16 pm

RemyRAD beat me to my reply, but before we get into gating, what mic are you using??? Could it be omni or bi-polar??
Best case should be a dynamic cardioid.

Pass on the styrofoam cup. It wont hold beer when youre done. Rolling Eyes

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 9:28 pm

benny wrote:

What are some techniques for reducing splashy hihat bleed in the snare mic during tracking?
Benny

1)Punch the useless motherF**ker in the face.

2) Move the mic to the OTHER SIDE of the drum.

3) Kick the hapless, useless skin-banger in the leprechaun

4) put a small gobo over the mic...like an elizabethan collar for a toy dog

that's a good start.

dwoz

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:05 am

TVPostSound wrote:

Pass on the styrofoam cup. It wont hold beer when youre done. Rolling Eyes

i have used this technique lots of times and it works great as long as the mic isnt omni.

of course beer can be an essential part of tracking when you work with drummers.

second thought save the cups.

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:07 am

Yea are you sure that the snare is on axis and that the hi hats are off axis? Use a gate.

Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:46 am

The first thing you should do is, assuming you're using a cardiod mic, is to place the mic so that it is facing as close to exactly opposite of the hi hat as possible. This will allow the mic's null point to naturally reject the majority of hi hat bleed. If you do this while tracking, you should be in good shape when it comes time to mix. You'll never completely get rid of the bleed from the hi hat while tracking, but if you use proper mic placement, you should end up pretty close.

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:03 am

my guess is that your not getting enough drums out of the overheads.
use recordermans overhead micing tecnique,that way you will get much more of the drums it self into the drum mix.
so the snare would stand out naturally over the hats!
search the forum for the recorderman tecnique.
try it and please dont gate the snare!!!
Thumbs Up

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:23 am

Dan_Pence wrote:

place the mic so that it is facing as close to exactly opposite of the hi hat as possible. This will allow the mic's null point to naturally reject the majority of hi hat bleed.

This sounds good in theory, but I've never been able to get it to work because in order to do it, you either have to place the mic closer to the HH (which makes it louder), or it is so obtrusive to the snare drum that it gets in the drummer's way.

Granted, I'm just now starting to get the hang of good drum micing, but can you elaborate on how you accomplish this? Preferably with photos?

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:49 pm

what mic are u using? 57 or d1 shouldnt get in the way....

twon

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:55 pm

I'm using a 57.

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:17 am

The best cure like it has been said is to place the mic in a position to reject the hi hat by pointing the null of the mic in the direction of the hi hat.

BUT...sometimes were aren't so lucky and have a drummer that crowds his snare with his hats and toms so getting a mic in their can be tricky.

OR....

Another way to do it if you don't like using a gate.....edit out the audio between the snare hits then fade out the tail end of each of your edits. Without doing the fades you'll hear a little choppiness goin' on.

It is a really long and boring process, but I've been able to get more "natural" results as opposed to using a gate.

I'm gate illiterate....it's usually hit or miss for me.

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:08 pm

I had the same problem for soooo long, then I realized that I was micing the snare drum with a Shure SM-57, this is an excelent DYNAMIC MIC, so it's very directionable. Try to place the mic in a position where the hi hat is in the absolute back, so it interfieres the least with it's feild. This should give you less hit hat-bleeding problems, or else, it will give you the possibillity of uing a gate to totally eliminate hi hat bleeds in your snare mic

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 7:22 pm

what if i have the oposite problem??? too much snare in my hi hat???

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